I was wondering how the coverage schemes are set up. I assumed long coverage was kind of similar to prevent, giving a big cushion. I may be incorrect though. Anyway, how does this result happen? THis play starts at the 29, and the turnover takes place 3 yards down field at the 32. I understand the QB threw to a covered man which obviously can lead to a turonover. What I don't understand is how long cover is covering so shallow. Any info on the coverage schemes would be helpful! thanks in advance

OFF: Shotgun: Default DEF: Dime: Default

SHOTGUN - Robert Ramos takes the snap. [Pass Defense - long cover]
Ramos throws to a covered Nance at the RU 32. Clark intercepts the ball at the RU 32.

- Good question Coach Deen! Perhaps it was a def end or linebacker and I assumed incorrectly it was someone in the secondary. I am going to look that up right now. You may have solved the riddle for me....

Good question as I intend to add this stuff to the FAQ, but I don't think this has been explained yet. So I'll explain the way it works now and we can discuss and you can test with a little more knowledge.

For cover, you basically have 3 types of players - LBs, CBs, and Safeties. Safeties are also designated as SS and FS which is important. You also have the 5 possible target locations - Very Short (behind the line), Short, Medium, Long, and Deep (>20 yards). You can have 3 types of receivers - RBs, TEs, and WRs - along with their certain slot location distributions set on the formation which can be thought of as "routes".

The most simplest way to look at this is: LBs will cover RBs and TEs and their routes. CBs will cover WRs and their routes. Safeties will cover zone locations based on the Cover settings. We all know how complicated football settings could be, so if you want to think of this in football terms, I would say this is closest to a Cover-2 with some adjustment on the Safeties play based on the Cover settings. The easiest explanation is that CBs and LBs play man coverage and Safeties play zones.

What this means is that CBs and LBs will tend to cover where their target goes, so even if you have Long cover, these guys will try to cover their players even if they go short. How well they cover them short can be adjusted, but they essentially don't just sprint down field because the Cover setting is Long.

While the CBs and LBs follow their receivers settings, the FS and SS follow the Cover settings. For Short cover, the SS will mostly play Short and the FS play Medium. For Medium cover, the SS will mostly play Medium and the FS split between Medium and Long. For Long cover, both will mostly play Long.

Where it gets a little more complicated is when you have mismatches. For instance, let's say you have 1 CB and 3 WRs. If you have extra LBs, they might be put on WRs, but if you do not, then you will have less coverage. This can happen between different formation match ups or when defense is blitzing. A lot of the passing balance I was working on was to take account of these mismatches. How well a player is covered, depends on how many players are in the targeted location as well as how well those players match up ratings-wise, and we'll also figure out which defenders are in on the coverage. Its more complicated than that, but that's a simple way of understanding it. Once the ball is thrown to the target, only those defenders that were in on the cover can defend the pass and be in on the initial tackle after the reception.

All of this is able to be adjusted in many different places, and there may be some places we need to tweak, but for the most part, this should help explain some of the results a little more. Also, you should see some synergies like if your Cover is Long, maybe more short passes are made but they don't get as many long runs because there are more people between them and the end zone, but if your Cover is Short, maybe you prevent more short passes, but there aren't as many defenders to get through on the YAC.

Posted by norbert on 4/22/2013 11:29:00 AM (view original):Good question as I intend to add this stuff to the FAQ, but I don't think this has been explained yet. So I'll explain the way it works now and we can discuss and you can test with a little more knowledge.

For cover, you basically have 3 types of players - LBs, CBs, and Safeties. Safeties are also designated as SS and FS which is important. You also have the 5 possible target locations - Very Short (behind the line), Short, Medium, Long, and Deep (>20 yards). You can have 3 types of receivers - RBs, TEs, and WRs - along with their certain slot location distributions set on the formation which can be thought of as "routes".

The most simplest way to look at this is: LBs will cover RBs and TEs and their routes. CBs will cover WRs and their routes. Safeties will cover zone locations based on the Cover settings. We all know how complicated football settings could be, so if you want to think of this in football terms, I would say this is closest to a Cover-2 with some adjustment on the Safeties play based on the Cover settings. The easiest explanation is that CBs and LBs play man coverage and Safeties play zones.

What this means is that CBs and LBs will tend to cover where their target goes, so even if you have Long cover, these guys will try to cover their players even if they go short. How well they cover them short can be adjusted, but they essentially don't just sprint down field because the Cover setting is Long.

While the CBs and LBs follow their receivers settings, the FS and SS follow the Cover settings. For Short cover, the SS will mostly play Short and the FS play Medium. For Medium cover, the SS will mostly play Medium and the FS split between Medium and Long. For Long cover, both will mostly play Long.

Where it gets a little more complicated is when you have mismatches. For instance, let's say you have 1 CB and 3 WRs. If you have extra LBs, they might be put on WRs, but if you do not, then you will have less coverage. This can happen between different formation match ups or when defense is blitzing. A lot of the passing balance I was working on was to take account of these mismatches. How well a player is covered, depends on how many players are in the targeted location as well as how well those players match up ratings-wise, and we'll also figure out which defenders are in on the coverage. Its more complicated than that, but that's a simple way of understanding it. Once the ball is thrown to the target, only those defenders that were in on the cover can defend the pass and be in on the initial tackle after the reception.

All of this is able to be adjusted in many different places, and there may be some places we need to tweak, but for the most part, this should help explain some of the results a little more. Also, you should see some synergies like if your Cover is Long, maybe more short passes are made but they don't get as many long runs because there are more people between them and the end zone, but if your Cover is Short, maybe you prevent more short passes, but there aren't as many defenders to get through on the YAC.

If you have four WRs going deep and coverage is short, does that mean that only CBs and LBs are in the targeted location (safeties being short and medium)?

If you have four WRs going deep and coverage is medium, there is only one safety long. Does that one safety show as in the targeted location i.e. is long coverage also considered for deep? Does that one safety show up in the targeted location for all four WRs? If not, what determines where the safety's targeted location?

If you have four WRs going deep and coverage is long, do both safeties show up as in the targeted location? Or is the targeted location split? If so, how?

Where the safety plays is based on cover but is split across several locations with most of his "influence" in the location I posted above with a little bleed over influence in the neighboring locations. Safeties in Long cover will also be active deep.

For instance, if you have 4 WRs going deep, the CBs will cover them and Safeties depending on cover setting. A Long cover setting will set the Safeties to have more influence deep and therefore more coverage, while a Short setting will produce less coverage. This all goes in to feed the chance that the target has more than one defender on him, which in turn will adjust his chance of being open.

There are probably about a dozen things I can think of just to improve the cover logic. The 3.0 engine breaks the plays down into pieces that all go in to feed the next piece. Future updates will probably be focused on one particular piece, like the cover logic. As it stands, the cover logic, I think, does a pretty good job of matching players up based on settings for both offense and defense, as well as comparing ratings to get open with a different mix of ratings depending on the location and defender. There is logic to help prevent a defender from "double dipping" in providing cover in one step and the next, but it only checks the last step, so that could be improved. All in all, even with the improvements I see that could be made, it's a ton more sophisticated than 2.0 and can only get better whereas 2.0 had no good way to improve.

I would like to figure out a way to provide more of this sophistication in the PBP, but I also don't want to bloat the PBP to where it becomes undesirable to read. If there is anything you guys would like to see in particular when it comes to how well a player is covered, let me know and we'll see if we can figure out a way to put it in the PBP that flows well.

"I would like to figure out a way to provide more of this sophistication in the PBP, but I also don't want to bloat the PBP to where it becomes undesirable to read. If there is anything you guys would like to see in particular when it comes to how well a player is covered, let me know and we'll see if we can figure out a way to put it in the PBP that flows well."

How about saying something like "QB throws into double-coverage" when a safety is assisting a CB?

Posted by scrodz on 4/24/2013 11:52:00 AM (view original):So CBs play man, and the safeties play the cover zone and assist the CBs. The cover LBs cover the RBs and TEs. Do the line LBs assist the cover LBs, or are they committed to the line?

The safeties will assist anyone in their area of influence, so a safety might also assist in cover against a RB or TE depending on the target location and the cover settings. The players committed to the line will remain committed to the line and will not assist in cover. Blitzers are essentially players that drop from cover and commit to the line.

One thing I've noticed that I might look at putting in are players' activity in the player list where you see their slot and fatigue for each play. That might also be something useful to see like which players were at the line and which players were in coverage. Likewise, which offensive players were at the line and which were not.

SHOTGUN - Rick Smith takes the snap. [Pass Defense - BLITZ: Moore - long cover]
The defense is starting to get pressure on Smith. Smith throws to the wide open Goodman at the L 14 (deep). Pass is off the mark. Incomplete.

Missing wide open receivers seems pretty common. Should we ratchet the completion percentage up when they are wide open and turn it down when they are covered/well covered?